Officials from the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) are in Turkey examining the files of 40 people from Syria to determine which of them may qualify for relocation to Estonia.

The officials, who flew to Turkey on Sunday, will be interviewing Syrian citizens eligible for seeking international protection in Estonia as part of the migrant resettlement and relocation programme agreed upon by EU member states.

The files of some 40 people in all will be reviewed in Turkey, and decisions concerning specific individuals will be made following the completion of a background check and interviews, spokespeople for the PPA said this week.

The PPA officials will be in Turkey through the end of the week.

To date, 171 people have been resettled in Estonia under the EU resettlement plan, none of them this year.

A total of 206 people have been relocated to and resettled in Estonia within the framework of the EU's 2015 migration plan, 141 of whom came from Greece, 59 from Turkey and six from Italy. Approximately 80 of these refugees are currently not in the country. Estonia considers the EU's 2015 plan fulfilled and will not be accepting any more people for resettlement in or relocation to Estonia under that plan.

On 27 September 2017, the European Commission proposed to resettle 50,000 people requiring international protection from October 2019. The Estonian government approved the resettlement of 40 people from Turkey each in 2018 and 2019, making for a total of 80 people. Thus, Estonia is accepting a maximum of 286 refugees in the framework of the EU migration plan from 2015-2019.

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